Great Galactic Kiwi from Astrofest

[RickS]

The Great Galactic Kiwi is a complex of dark nebulae in Ophiuchus which obscures the many background stars in the direction of the Milky Way galactic centre. The field contains a rich haul of Messier objects (including M7, M8, M20), NGC objects, Barnard "B" dark nebulae, etc. The whole field is approximately 21x14 degrees.

Objects in image:
Kiwi/Pipe Nebula (B65, B66, B67, B78) and many other Barnard dark nebulae, M6, M7, M8, M9, M19, M20, M21, M23, M62, many NGCs

Scope: Zeiss 100mm f/2 Makro-Planar lens
Mount: Star Adventurer
Camera: Nikon D800E
Image scale: 10.3 arcsec/pixel
Exposures: 45x120s
Processing: PixInsight 1.8.5

Bigger versions at: https://www.astrobin.com/full/361279/0/

I hadn't tried serious wide field imaging before and it was a lot of fun...

Cheers,
Rick.

[multiweb]

B.E.A.U.tiful! :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:
Great to browse around. I like the saturation and colours. Very cool field.

[h0ughy]

Great success

[Placidus]

Wonderful! Who needs to photograph other galaxies when we've got our very own?

[peter_4059]

Cool image Rick. The dark dusty stuff looks great at this scale.

[strongmanmike]

Very nice Rick...something tells me there might be some more panels coming..? ;)

Mike

[ozstronomer]

A really beautiful wide field Rick

That's a cracker of a lens:thumbsup:

Geoff

[RobF]

Great stuff. Looking forward to more Rick....

[Camelopardalis]

What's not to love about wide field, Rick ;) :thumbsup:

[gregbradley]

A very good image. Bit of a shame that the Lagoon and Trifid are mostly half missing.


The yellowish star clouds could be more firey and look a tad muted in colour to my eye. There are many wide angle shots that show these clouds and they often look like fire.


Greg.

[Geoff45]

Nice composition and detail Rick. The kiwi is amazingly realistic.

[troypiggo]

Very cool. I agree with Greg - shame the Lagoon is just cut off, but I know it's hard to frame through viewfinder manually.

[RickS]

Thanks, Mr Sandals & cool accent :lol:



Thanks, David.



Thanks very much, M&T. Hard to do much more at 100mm focal length but I have enjoyed the change and might do some more...



Thanks, Peter!



Ta, Mike. I didn't plan any mosaics in detail but I might be able to add a little to the top of this one ;)



Thanks, Geoff. The Zeiss was a good choice it seems!



Thanks, Rob. A few more to go...



I could get to like it, Dunk, but I'll run out of sky eventually :lol:



Thanks, Greg. I think I have a panel that will complete the Lagoon. I'm going for relatively muted colours to start with but I expect I'll have them flaming violently in no time :D



Thanks, Geoff!



Thanks, Troy. Framing through an optical viewfinder while kneeling on hard, parched ground is less than ideal but I think I have the top half of the Lagoon somewhere in my data :P

[Slawomir]

Splendid wide field image Rick. It was a bit of a pleasant surprise to get an image from you with a relatively short explore and even more so to see that you have been experimenting with a dslr !

[Paul Haese]

This is nice Rick. Colours, composition and detailing are all good. The inky blackness of the dark nebulae is my favourite though.

[petershah]

just Beautiful Rick...lovely golden field with beautiful dark nebula :thumbsup:

[RickS]

Thanks, Suavi. It has been fun!



Thanks very much, Paul.



Thanks, Peter!